


out of an orange-colored sky

by oliverbatim



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, F/F, First Kiss, Pre-Relationship, Self-Indulgent, Snippets, out of context, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 04:46:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17318345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliverbatim/pseuds/oliverbatim
Summary: In the midst of the Derangement, there is always more work to be done- especially in the "civilized" Sundom. Even so, Bea and Aloy find time to talk and find comfort in each other.





	out of an orange-colored sky

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song "orange colored sky" by nat king cole! love me some celestial/light imagery. 
> 
> this bit is completely out of context from anything else, but not a lot of background is needed other than the fact that the "work" bea mentions is her efforts in a gang of (technically) thieves, stealing from the rich in order to bring food, clothing, and essentials to the desperately poor servants that were exiled to sunfall for their masters' crimes (as referenced in the quest "robbing the rich").

Aloy walked past Bea, out to the railing. The setting sun beyond them spread across the horizon, illuminating the city of Meridian with vivid warmth and painting the sky with shapes and colors that many Carja claimed to read fortunes in. She leaned over, resting her forearms on the carved stone, as Bea stepped next to her. They both looked out over the fields of maize, watching as the torches in the paths were lit one by one in anticipation of the approaching dusk.

“Aloy,” Bea said. “Do you ever feel that you’re missing a home you’ve never known?”

For a moment, both were silent. Then Aloy turned to Bea, and there was a look of both warmth and remembered pain in her face. “Sometimes it feels like all I ever do is miss what might have been in another time or place.”

“Yes,” Bea’s eyes were far away, still fixed on where the light lined the mountains, bleeding over the foothills. “I’ve always had the impression that we’re... out of place, all of us. That we were meant for something else. It’s why I visit the ruins so often. If I were to find our purpose anywhere, I feel like it would be in the Old World.”

“You don’t think you’ve found a purpose in the caravan?” asked Aloy.

“A purpose, yes, of course. The work we do is essential,” Bea answered, and drew her attention from the sunset to the woman beside her. “The people of Sunfall would never find their way back into the light without our help. I don’t mean to belittle that. In a place so deep in shadow, whatever we can do for them is worth doing.”

“Then what do you mean?”

At the question, Bea turned to the railing again, thinking deeply. In the maize below, a child shrieked with glee, a father’s laughter mingling with the sound. Someone in the village rang a gong several times, calling their offspring home for dinner. Life went on even after dark began to fell; behind Bea and Aloy, in the city, window shutters were already tightly closed, streets all but empty, as the upper class and merchantmen hid from the shadow of twilight.

“There is more to it than this,” said Bea with assurance. “There is something greater we are meant for, something we aren’t understanding. Where we come from, and how we’re meant to progress.”

“You… may be right,” Aloy said heavily. 

Sensing the melancholy in her tone, Bea looked back at her. The last of the sunlight lit Aloy’s face with gold and rose, and turned her hair to a sheet of glowing metal, red-hot and flamelike, the overheating core of a hunted machine. The corner of Bea’s mouth twitched upwards, and she lifted her fingertips to the curve of Aloy’s jaw. The woman’s breath hitched, something confused and desiring in her light eyes, and Bea traced the softness of her cheek, smiling.

“There’s time yet for us to find out what we’re meant for,” she told her. “For now, even someone as restless as you will have to find pride and purpose in smaller things.”

Aloy said nothing in answer, looking at Bea, one of her hands coming up to brush the one still cupping her face.

The sun disappeared, at long last, behind the far-off mountains; but the sounds of life in Meridian Village still rose to the city, and the torchlight lingered in Aloy’s hair as though the sun had never left. 

“‘For every shadow, there is sunlight,’” Bea echoed the adage, eyes tracing the gleaming locks of red and orange. She fit her thumb to Aloy’s cheekbone, and there in the dark and silent city leaned up and kissed her.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr for self-shipping at sun-bea-m


End file.
